This invention relates to price channels of the kind frequently used at the front of merchandise shelves in supermarkets and the like for attaching pricing labels, or signs pertaining to the merchandise on the shelves.
Steel merchandise shelves frequently are made with a C-shaped channel along the front edge in which labels or sign holders can be fitted. Where such shelves are formed without a channel, plastic fittings can be added to the shelves to provide such channels. Price channels can generally be used to accommodate snap-in price labels and sign holders or smaller adhesive backed labels.
When price channels are used, as above, for labelling merchandise on a shelf, no significant problems arise for shelves which are at a convenient viewing height for a customer. For shelves near floor level, however, and shelves above eye level, customers have trouble in reading price channel labels because the labels are generally vertically oriented. One known form of extruded plastic snap-in price channel 10, as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 provides labelling panel 12 oriented at an angle when the price channel is fitted on a shelf, so that when used on a floor level shelf, a label is more readily viewed by a customer. The known price channel includes a rearwardly extending leg 14 and a projecting barb 16 at the top of the labelling panel. When snapped into an existing C-channel of a metal shelf 18, the barb engages behind the upper lip 20 of the C-channel, the bottom of leg 14 engages behind the lower lip 22, and the labelling panel is angled upwardly. It has been found, however, that the known snap-in price channel 10, can be displaced somewhat easily from the C-channel, for example, when bumped by a shopping cart.
Also, as evident in FIGS. 1 and 2, price channel 10 is provided with a co-extruded clear plastic front cover 24 providing a means whereby non-adhesive labels can be retained against the labelling panel. The bulbous nature of the bottom end of the price channel destroys the gripping effect of this end so that the price channels as illustrated cannot be used to receive snap-in sign holders, for example.